Metta's Story: Australian aborigines

Metta Ray
Story #2

Apology issued to the ‘Stolen Generation’

In Australia, from 1930 thru 1970, it is said that the ‘half-caste’ children, meaning one parent white and the other Aborigine, were taken from their families and placed in reform camps by the Australian government under British rule in an attempt to ‘breed out the color’. These children are referred to as the ‘stolen-generation’.

According to a report issued by the Australian government in 1997, In August 1995, Michael Lavark, attorney general of Australia, requested the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to investigate these allegations and report back no later than December 1996. In 1997 the HREOC published a report called Bringing Them Home. This 500 plus page report contains first hand accounts of kidnapping and racial bias and includes pictures and personal submissions contributed by the Aboriginal people themselves.

A film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, 2003, directed by Phillip Noyce, an Australian citizen, is based on the 1997 report of the HROEC and the accounts of one woman whose mother had been part of this race reform project. Doris Pilkington is the author of the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, a fictionalized memoir of true-life events that affected her mother, Molly.

This controversial and heated subject has had many in an uproar. A.O. Neville, was one of the men named by the Australian government as ‘chief protector of Aborigines’ and was in large accused of attempting biological absorption for the purpose of white privilege and separating half-caste children from their families. In a speech to the initial conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities in April 1937 at Parliament House, Neville stated “they have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patients will." Neville’s family has spoken out against these allegations, and has denied any ill-willing actions. According to a Document written by Anthropological Researcher Geoffrey Gray, entitled The Natives are Happy and featured in issue 51 of the 1996, Journal of Australian Studies,

Neville was a dedicated and hard working man, devoted to the care and well being of all Aboriginal natives. However, this has been disputed by many.

Australian-born Dean Gibson, 36, who was raised not ten miles from an Aborigine camp said that “They are some of the nicest people you could meet”. He is aware of the abuse of the Aboriginal people by the government “[it] was common knowledge, we all knew about it” Gibson said, “but it was a bit before my time”. “We were taught about it in school as if it were fact, yet our prime minister, John Howard, refused to apologize to the Aborigine people.” Gibson said “but as soon as Kevin Rudd was made prime minister, he apologized on behalf of the Australian government”

In February of 2008 an official apology to Australia’s indigenous peoples was issued by the house of representatives of parliament in Canberra, Australia.

April 10, 2008 11:35 AM

Metta Ray said...

I'm having trouble focusing this piece. Can anyone offer any advice?

1. do you understand the point?
2. what is missing?
3. what else do you want to know?

Thanks!
Metta

April 10, 2008 11:40 AM

What do you think?